When faced with a tough business challenge, have you ever wanted the advice of someone that’s been in your shoes? Across the past year, SEC members have asked more than 400 questions and received nearly 2,000 answers from peers on the SEC Discussions Q&A forums. Top 5 Questions from the Sales Ops Forum : 1. Is it Sales Ops, Finance, HR, or some other function? ” 2. ” 3.

The rise of big data has been a double-edged sword for some. While customers have embraced data as it allows for easier price comparisons, their persistent focus on short-term savings has created new challenges for sellers—mainly, by undercutting the power of storytelling. In today’s tough economy, everyone wants to get the most for their money. But therein lies the problem.

Wonder why you’ve seen increased Inside Sales turnover in your organization recently? Is it because reps are dissatisfied with their compensation package or working environment? Is it their relationships with immediate team members and managers? What about career opportunities? What exactly does “flexible career opportunities” mean though? Have you experienced this issue in your sales organization?

iPads® and tablets become more prevalent in the sales world, there is a lot of buzz around the many ways in which they could be useful. With more and more sales organizations adopting these technology, one thing is clear – the potential impact these devices can have on a sales rep is immense. The most popular apps for sales fall into four broad categories: Travel and expense. Sales Enablement.

A fundamental shift in customer buying behavior has created a rift where Sales and Marketing have traditionally engaged customers. This lack of awareness could partly be blamed on the fact that there is significant internal confusion in supplier organizations over the ownership of certain commercial responsibilities. Click Image to Enlarge.

Do you ever feel like your salespeople forget almost everything you coach them on? There are few things more frustrating than a seller repeating the same mistakes over and over, no matter how hard you try to show them the better way. Why does this happen? An easy conclusion to draw might be that our salespeople are simply hard-headed. Sales Insights Challenger Selling Model Sales Coaching

In today’s consensus-driven sales environment, we all agree that engaging the right customer contact is a critical linchpin in deals progressing forward. While we know the best reps lead with insight to challenge customers’ assumptions, who your reps challenge can drastically change the course of a deal. So who are the right customer stakeholders to work and how can we help our reps find them? And once reps find this individual it’s a clear path to the corner office and a closed deal, right? Wrong. While these conversations are easy and pleasant, they ultimately lead to the road to Nowhere.
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This is the time of year where many organizations are finalizing changes to their 2012 compensation plan for the sales force. While it can be a tricky time (as we must always be careful to avoid misunderstandings from the sales rep community around the new plans) – it really doesn’t have to be… When it comes to structuring an effective compensation plan, the first thing to know is that communication can be even more important than the design of the plan itself. Take sales force input into account as you design compensation plans—especially star reps. Communicate transparently.
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Is your sales force experiencing increasingly stalled business, extended cycle times, and inaccurate forecasts? If so, it’s time to revisit your sales process and take a hard look at how your customers buy. Traditionally, companies have taken an inward approach to developing their sales processes—they typically only consider internal senior management requirements that make management and forecasting easier (or so they thought…). Unfortunately, the glaring problem with this approach is that it does not take into account where customers actually stand in the sale. Automatic Data Processing, Inc.
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A recent blog post on Harvard Business Review titled, “ I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore ,” was unfortunately very relatable. The core of the article explored how business conversations have evolved into bits of nonsense (e.g., synergy”, ”value-add”) that make understanding each other much more of a challenge than anything else. We all fall victim to the excessive use of acronyms from time to time. Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end.
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“I don’t have time for another one of these! I’ve got to be in-front of my customer!”. Have you heard that from your sales force lately? Maybe someone’s even said it today. The “these” referenced above are the multiple internal tugs at a sales force’s time…things such as meetings, surveys, reviews and trainings that internal partners hold. Why are these things so problematic? Because time spent fulfilling internal company requests is time NOT spent selling. So, what results did Schneider Electric see with this communications screening process? decrease in overall volume of requests.
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